My children don’t know the pledge of allegiance.
I realized this as we watched the Superbowl. Other families had crowded into our living room. The smell of the grill wafted in from the back door. Kids were giggling and playing. There was a low hum of conversation. We watched the television as players and patrons placed their hands over their hearts during the anthem and
then the pledge. My kindergartener turned to ask,
“Mommy, what are they doing?”
I told her that they’re saying the pledge of allegiance. “Pledge of Allegiance?! What is that?” she exclaimed. I tossed and turned in my head how to explain it. Before I
came up with the words, she ran off to play with her sister and other friends. How could I explain the pledge of allegiance to a five year old? What is its purpose? What does it do? How did it come to be? Why do we say it? There I am, a plate full of chips and queso, now wondering if I have not taught my daughter something important.
We’ve been homeschooling our children for the last two years. I wish I could tell you that this decision was made carefully and with much intention. A lot of
times people expect a manifesto that accompanies your homeschooling decision. The truth was that I lost my corporate job and we could no longer afford childcare. Before working in the corporate space, I was an educator. I taught fifth grade for five years. When our family faced this challenge, I thought I should put my degree to good use! Now here we are, learning phonics and addition at our kitchen table. It has been a wonderful journey. I’ve had the pleasure of teaching my oldest to read. We’ve learned about insects, why the leaves change, constellations, and how Jesus did miracles. It’s been a joy to teach but also learn right alongside them. Though I feel we‘ve studied a vast array of topics, memorized many Bible verses, and built lots of knowledge – my kids don’t know a rhyme that many children their age can recite with no problem. I sometimes imagine what my children would do if they saw a flag rise. Would they look around and copy their peers? Would they put their
hands to their heart and mumble along? Would they assume the words were well intentioned? Would they look at the flag and wonder what exactly they’re pledging
to?
As we celebrate the 250th birthday of this nation, many symbols demand attention and reflection. From our flag, to our Constitution, to our anthems and pledges. We’re reflecting on the red, white and blue of this place that we call America. Ideally on a birthday, you reflect on the positives, the blessings, the good things. Yet, this nation in particular has its fair share of curses. How do we hold the tension of that, then? At a time where our nation seems to be regressing in terms of social justice, citizens’ rights, and political violence – how do we say Happy Birthday to a nation that seems bent on death? How do we celebrate a place whose roots and ground are blood soaked? How do we sing and speak of a land that claims to know God but does not act like Him? These are things I reflect on as I choose how to teach about this history to my children.
When I first began in the classroom, I remember receiving the history curriculum. It was minimal. My district at the time was a struggling one. There was a larger emphasis on reading and math because those subjects were state-tested. Science, social studies and the arts were usually left by the wayside. I was troubled many times reading the ways in which we described complex historical events. I distinctly remember a multiple-choice testing question in which students had to choose the cause of the Civil War. The choices were economics, slavery, miscommunication between the North and South, and the Presidential election. How were my students supposed to understand the nuance of this question? I was only given 15-20 minutes daily to teach American History. How could I properly teach that the answer to this question was essentially all of the above? Slavery was the backbone of the economy. Though slavery existed throughout the country, the South relied on it more than the North which led to this breaking. Abraham Lincoln, though famous for his Emancipation Proclamation, still did not believe in integrating former slaves fully into society and he levied his position on slavery for political gain. All of this could not fit in a minuscule teaching block, much less on a flash card or worksheet. This was not the fault of my administrators or even the school itself. It is instead the pervasive American need to measure and move humans like cattle that has persisted from the auction block to modern classrooms.
In her book, Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, educator and author Dr. Eve L. Ewing asserts how so much of our schooling and education practices are rooted in racism and colonization. Ewing argues that standardized testing in particular is rooted in eugenics that explicitly denies the existence of Black and Indigenous intelligence and is designed to perpetuate racial hierarchies. The book goes on to talk about a myriad of education practices. Yet, one in particular caught my eye. In chapter 2, Eve L. Ewing discusses the beginnings of the pledge of allegiance. She details how the pledge was designed as a tool for ideological assimilation in schools. During the Great Migration of Europeans to the States, the American caste system faced a challenge. It needed to maintain the binary of black and white. There needed to be a clear distinction on who was the superior and inferior class. The problem was that German, Italian and Scottish immigrants wanted to maintain their culture. They still wanted to eat, speak, and act like Germans, Italians, and Scots. They had no interest in being ‘white’, but the American caste system had every interest in maintaining its cruel binary of black and white to serve its interests of colonization, chattel slavery and segregation. The pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, not as a long-standing military tradition, but as part of a school program to Americanize the “alien child” and immigrants, facilitating their assimilation into a unified white race. Bellamy himself viewed his Pledge as an ‘inoculation’ from the diseases of radicalism and subversion. From the beginning, this pledge was written to assimilate and dominate. This is often one of the first things our children memorize in schools.
All of this dark history is in the back of my mind as I choose what to teach my children and what not. Our children are so tender and impressionable, eager to please and learn. They often repeat and echo all the things we say. This is why it is imperative that we tell the truth. I want all that echoes from my mouth to the hearts of my children to be true. I want my children to know the truth so that they can be free.
The question becomes, how do we tell this truth? Ask any adult about history and you will hear many stories of unlearning. I may have even shocked you with the origins of the pledge that you’ve known all your life and said without a second thought. The only reason so many of us are bruised by the revelation of true history or have to unlearn dearly held beliefs is because we were lied to at first. The grown-ups around us thought it would be best to tell a version of history that was polished and smooth so as not to upset us or to shut down further questioning. Even if this false teaching was from a place of care or love, it resulted in disillusionment, distrust, and societies of people who do not know the history of the land they live on and therefore cannot construct a hopeful future for it. This is why it is important for us to not tell fairytales about this nation. We can tell stories of beanstalks, magic castles, and kissing frogs on other days. When it comes to the story of this nation, we must tell our children the truth. Delaying or denying our history will not heal us, it will only perpetuate harm. Proverbs 12:19 says,
Truthful lips endure forever,
but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.
It may feel good in the moment to sidestep the hard moments of our history. We may even feel relief. But that is only temporary. We will eventually have to tell our children the truth. We must tell them of the ways in which our holy scriptures were used to justify the things that our Jesus condemned. We must tell of the image bearers that were killed and enslaved so that this nation could be built. We must tell of the way it has pushed the poor, the widow and the orphan to its margins despite its claim to be a Christian nation. We must be honest about this. We also must lead our children in lamenting these tragedies. Of course, there must be a tenderness about the information we present. All of the history we teach should be developmentally appropriate. However, we do not need to lie about our history to tell it to our children. We can be honest from the beginning so that they can trust our teaching and leadership and look to us as they become teachers themselves.
There may be someone reading my thoughts here and thinking that I’m being radical. Fair enough. However, I’d like to assert a final thought that will perhaps make you reflect on my radicality. In many homeschool Christian communities, there is a big emphasis on indoctrination. You will hear many parents insist that they don’t want their children to be indoctrinated by public schools. Perhaps this indoctrination is not coming via teaching on sexuality and race, but perhaps indoctrination towards nationalist idolatry. Scripture is clear that we serve one God. Yet this nation’s symbols and rituals demand our worship as well. When we teach our young people that the beginning of their learning day, their sports games, their extracurricular activities must begin with them pledging allegiance to something other than Yahweh, what implications does that have? When they place their hands over their chests, what are they tying their hearts to? If our goal in education is to truly raise Christ followers, children who grow up to be disciples of the Lord – we must teach them that their loyalty and their allegiance should be pledged to the only Truth that has lasted from generation to generation, from sea to shining sea. This Truth is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. This Truth lifts the lowly and sets the captive free. This Truth brings people together in unity from every corner of the earth under His Holy Banner. This truth that we should be having our children pledge to is none other than Jesus Christ. He is much better than any lie we’ve told.
guest post by Maya Wilson
Maya Wilson is an educator and writer based in Atlanta, GA She is the host of the Teaology Podcast, where she explores topics at the intersection of faith and culture.